Religion has its place. But it can never include unreasonable dogma, injustice, abuse of laity or clergy, or any other mounds of medieval crap that churches are buried within.
Indeed, most "Christian" churchs are about control of others, rather than controlling themselves. And Christ has long been absent from many of these institutions.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Combatting a Particularly Nasty Strain of Idol-Worship

There's no easy way to break this to fundamentalists, so I'm just going to state my conclusion "bang" -- then, while the fundies huff and puff themselves into apoplexy, I will explain my reasoning through an appeal to conscience.

"Sola Scriptura" is idol-worship of ancient texts.

A well-meaning fellow explains this thusly: "One thing that Sola Scriptura insists on is that only God is holy, all of humanity is not."

The only way to make sense of this statement is to accept your well-poisoning that "Scriptura" is "God".

At best, this is an error, and a circular argument. At worst, it illustrates exactly what I'm saying now: This is idol-worship.

Indeed, this is something that needed to be brought up sooner or later anyway, so might as well bring it up now:

"One thing that Sola Scriptura insists on is that only God is holy, all of humanity is not."

Only if you overload "holy" to mean "perfect", in a classic black/white fallacy.

But in the real world -- where reasonable people live -- this is a greyscale: People are "more holy" and "less holy", not "holy" and "not holy".

And I'm telling you right now, that someone defending Genesis 6:6-7 without question is less holy than someone whose conscience is disturbed by that exposition.

Can you understand why to be fettered to this ideology is slavery to some pretty rotten ideas?

God is beyond human comprehension -- even if you say an author is "inspired!", God is still beyond his or her ken!

And this is why Judaism evolved beyond idol-worship, your "Ark of the Covenant", Asherah, tablets of the 10 Commandments, etc: because someone can come along and smash your graven image...and then what are you left with?

But: God, the Creator, abides -- not because of holding a text, or an ark, to be "sacred": but _despite_ the horrible things the so-called "fundamentalists" say about God!

Genesis 6:6: And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

RIIIIIGHT. Which is more likely in this case -- that God was caught off-guard, as the text implies...or that this is a legend about God, not to be taken literally?

Genesis 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

That is not God, the Creator, that you worship: but a libelous legend about God that you hold to be "inerrant": thanks to your ideas of "Sola Scriptura". This is a graven image: an idol, a golden calf.

The Calvinist response to this is absolutely absurd and ridiculous: that God killing the babies in Gen 6:7 is not to be held to our quote "human standards" unquote of morality.

Yes, friends: These Calvists are called to live by their "Perfect Example", whom they find in Jesus Christ -- but we are to ignore the Example set by God's alleged previous dealings with humankind?

Ladies and gentlemen: If that is what it means to be a "True Christian" -- to ignore our consciences when evaluating a supposedly sacred text -- then count me out!

Because you self-proclaimed, alleged "True Christians" are shackled to a golden calf: the idol of this bronze-age doggerel that you proclaim to be "inerrant".

I do not say this lightly, nor with any amount of enjoyment -- but only, because somebody has to say it: It's this kind thinking, around this fundamentalist "Sola Scriptura" idol-worship, that is responsible for centuries of abject pain and misery.

And I am long past the age where I would feel good about such a proclamation. I write this with no pride or hubris, but as an absolutely wretched human being, miserable with heartache, to the point of pain and nausea.

God is so much more greater than any human being can write. I know this from personal experiences -- experiences that if I were to relate, very few reasonable people would understand or believe. Even I don't understand these experiences fully, and sometimes I believe that maybe I'd gone off my cams, rather than trust the evidence of my senses.

The Bible is a holy text, to be sure -- but inerrant? No: that is idol-worship, and anyone saying otherwise deserves scorn and rebuke.

If you have comments regarding this post, please post them here...but for now, I'm not going to look at comments, but will be with my loved ones, watching the sunrise.